A tenant's story that a balcony fire was sparked by an overturned candle quickly went up in smoke Sunday morning when it emerged he'd really been drying marijuana on a barbecue. The unidentified young man suffered burns to his feet, hands and chest trying to put out the fire in a third-floor suite at the Benvoulin Orchard Manor on Baron Road east of Dilworth Drive.

The fire was contained to the suite's balcony and interior, with damage estimated at between $25,000 and $30,000 by assistant fire chief Lou Wilde.

The 8:30 a.m. blaze forced the evacuation of the 62-unit building, with some tenants out in the street in housecoats, blankets and pajamas.

"I heard the alarm, opened my door and saw quite a bit of smoke in the hallway, and there was a smell like burnt rubber," said Keith Scott, who lives directly across from the suite where the fire broke out.

"I was sitting in bed drinking coffee when I heard the alarm," said Paula Fowler, another tenant. "I could smell the smoke pretty much right away, so I grabbed my purse, and my coffee, and went out into the street."

The man in the suite that burned told firefighters he'd been unable to sleep because it was too warm, so he'd gone out onto the balcony with a candle and a blanket. He said he went back inside to heat up a meat pie in the microwave, and when he went back to the balcony, the blanket was on fire.

However, police later told building residents that the man had been drying marijuana on the barbecue on the balcony. Pot plants were taken away by RCMP, who stayed at the scene after firefighters left to investigate further.

Smoke was reported to the fire department by Shaw Cable employees, who had just arrived at the building to do some work.

Tenant Sue Weldon said her first thought was to assist two elderly women, for whom she works as a caregiver, to get out as quickly as possible. One of the women had her birthday Sunday, turning 94, and the other will be 84 on Tuesday.

"One of the ladies was really scared, because she'd had a rib injury before when she was carried down out of the building when we had a false alarm," Weldon said. "She wanted to the firefighters to lift her out from her balcony, but fortunately the fire didn't spread and it didn't come to that."